Kamchatka volcanoes

PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY, May 22. /TASS/. The Zhupanovsky volcano on the Kamchatka Peninsula, in Russia’s Far East, has been assigned a red aviation hazard code warning.

The volcano started spewing ash up to 8 kilometers high late on Thursday. "A tail of ashes has spread in the northeastern direction towards the settlements," the Kamchatka division of the Geophysical Service of the Russian Academy of Sciences said.

The ash cloud spread some 600 kilometers to the northeast and was dispersed by the wind. Now the volcano is cloud capped and this hampers visual observations. The experts continue monitoring the volcano activity through satellites and seismological stations.

The Zhupanovsky volcano, located some 100 kilometers north of the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, is 2,958 meters high. The volcano has been active since October 2013. Last winter, several dozen ash eruptions were registered there.